May 2023

Welcome to the third issue of the Data Science & Society (DSS) newsletter!  We hope you are all doing well and are having a calm end to the academic year. Since the last newsletter in March, the DSS Steering Committee has been hard at work crafting a collaborative vision for DSS at Vassar, and we wanted to update you all on our progress. 

Colloquium Series.  We held two colloquia this spring – one by Kristina Lerman on “Biases in Data & Other Threats to Validity of Predictive Models” and another by Anurag Mehra (Science & Society Faculty Fellow at Vassar) on “Data-Based Surveillance During Covid-19.”  We are already planning an exciting colloquium series for next year, and hope you can join us.  You can view the developing schedule here: https://pages.vassar.edu/dss/colloquium-series-schedule/

Site Visits. We visited Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Amherst Colleges during the first week of spring break. We met with faculty involved with the data science programs and courses at these colleges, with the goal of understanding and learning how to develop a liberal arts data science program while avoiding potential pitfalls and stumbling blocks that can arise along the way.

Department/Program Visits and Listening Sessions.  We visited and spoke with representatives from a range departments and programs this semester, and wanted to share some of the main takeaways with you. We look forward to continuing conversations with these departments and programs, and all of the departments and programs that we did not get to, next year! We met with the following departments and programs this semester, organized by division

• Arts
  • Dance
  • Drama
• Foreign Languages and Literature
  • Chinese/Japanese
  • French and Francophone Studies
• Social Sciences
  • Anthropology
  • Education
  • History
  • Philosophy
  • Sociology
• Natural Sciences
  • Biology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Psychological Science
• Multidisciplinary Programs
  • Environmental Studies
    Science, Technology, and Society 

THANK YOU to everyone who made time to attend our listening sessions and share valuable insights.  Common themes that emerged from our listening sessions include:

• General positive interest in data from the departments and programs we met
• There is much excitement from faculty for increased data literacy
• There is an unmet need from the students to engage in more data-centric approaches in their respective disciplines
• Many existing courses across departments and divisions have direct relevance to DSS
• It isn’t only natural science departments/programs who are interested in data; many arts, foreign language and literature, and humanities departments are similarly excited and have much to contribute
• Desire by faculty to incorporate more data-centric approaches in their teaching and research, but lack of preparation or time to implement these
• Individual departments would be interested in hosting their own data-centric seminars, workshops, and other events that would encourage broader participation.
• Interest in more access to data for teaching and research
• Need for more reliable and consistent computational support across campus
• Proposal to revisit the College’s Quantitative Reasoning requirement, and possibly expand to include “data literacy”

Envisioning DSS at Vassar.  Based on our site visits, listening sessions, and discussions with colloquia speakers, we have begun crafting a collaborative vision for DSS at Vassar.  Specifically, we’ve sketched models for a data science curriculum at Vassar and identified the kinds of resources that might be required for the development of a successful data science effort at Vassar.  We look forward to sharing the fruit of our work with you over the coming semester.

We’re sending this message to those who have expressed an interest in data science and society at Vassar.  Please feel free to share with others.

Thank you and we wish you a great summer!  We look forward to continuing to work with you and the broader Vassar community to craft a collaborative path for DSS next year.